U.S. President Obama attends town hall meeting on health care in Maryland

President Barack Obama participates in a national tele-town hall meeting at the Holiday Park Multipurpose Senior Center with senior citizens to discuss the Affordable Care Act and ways to combat scams targeting seniors in Wheaton, Maryland on June 8, 2010. Secretary of Health and Human Service Kathleen Sebelius was on hand to moderate the questions from seniors. UPI/Gary Fabiano/Pool

Health care reform is a general rubric used for discussing major health policy creation or changes—for the most part, governmental policy that affects health care delivery in a given place. Health care reform typically attempts to:

The Netherlands has introduced a new system of health care insurance based on risk equalization through a risk equalization pool. In this way, a compulsory insurance package is available to all citizens at affordable cost without the need for the insured to be assessed for risk by the insurance company. Furthermore, health insurers are now willing to take on high risk individuals because they receive compensation for the higher risks .

A 2008 article in the journal Health Affairs suggested that the Dutch health system, which combines mandatory universal coverage with competing private health plans, could serve as a model for reform in the US.

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